Kill Me
by blahosaurus
Summary: You never know what is going to be around the corner, what awaits in the shadows of the future. One single minute can change the rest of your life. A single event can strip you from the will to live. OneShot.


**Kill Me**

Everything happened so fast, no one really knows how it came to be. It was supposed to be just another day. Another morning on the hunt, on the go, on the march.

Just another day.

But somewhere along the line everything crumbled into a horror they didn't even think possible, transformed in a picture woven out of nightmare and regret.

The group were walking like they always did. Inu-yasha at the front, Kagome and Shippo together, Miroku, Kirara and Sango taking the rear. It was a good day for shard-hunting. The sun was out and warming. Pleasing the earth into brightness. There was only a gentle breez to acompany them, making it easy to spot other sounds, other attacks. No wind to confuse scents and smells.

Just another day.

Yet, even with all the good conditions, the normality, the serenity that lulled them, the attack was sudden, a force that impacted them, face on.

They had sensed it coming of course. The scent, the noise, the aura, it was a danger sign that they knew not to ignore. Inu-yasha was at Kagome side in an instant, Shippo was trembling, myoga was gone, Kirara transformed, Miroku's hand was posed to attack, Sango was ready.

It was just another fight.

The demon attacked with blood red eyes and a foaming mouth. It called for the shinkon jewel in a wail of desperation. A hunger for power they were used to. They had defeated Naraku a few weeks back- it had been a deadly fight on a glorious day. They had all been injured and exhausted, but Naraku's greed for power and release form his human side had been his downfall. He had been purified and blasted out of existence by Kagome and Inu-yasha, Kikyou too injured to participate. It had not been fair play on her, a mud shell with stolen souls so close to both Naraku and Kagome. But in the end, all had ended well, the group's bond stronger than ever. And now their main concern was to complete the almost finished Shinkon Jewel.

Starting with the demon towering over them.

The fight went well, it went as always. Inu-yasha threw himself head first, to Kagome's disaproval and anoyance. Miroku had sutras in hand and Sango was on Kirara, already closing in for the attack. Kagome was moving away from the fight, Shippo cradled in her arms as she disposed of her bike. This wasn't her life she was living, she was in a dream where magic and supernatural creatures existed. She was scared, but didn't even feel it anymore.

Her bow was at hand, probably not going to be used, for she would need a clear shot, and reasurance that she would not shoot one of her friends by mistake, but she had learnt, the hard way, that she had to be ready for everything. She prepared to prepare to be prepared.

And yet tragedy sneaked in anyways.

"Get out of my way, Hanyou!" The animal roared. Inu-yasha narrowed his eyes at him, blocking his way with a gleaming sword.

"Kagome! Where are the shards!" Inu-yasha demanded, looking back for an instant to make sure she was alright, before attacking once again, barely missing the demon's huge clawed paw, and consequently leaving the demon without damage. The creature was one like they had seen several times before. The form of a giant bear, skin twisted as if it were carved on wood. But the paws were covered with slick, golden fur. They were the limbs of a very big lion.

"Give me the Shinkon shards! I need them! **I need them**!" He pleaded. Inu-yasha looked at the demon in disgust.

"In between the collarbones!" Kagome only had to hesitate a moment to make sure before exclaiming the results, earning a hell-hot glare from the furious demon. The momentary distraction, however, caused him a limb as the Hiraikotsu flew with a battle cry. The monster shrieked, a high pitched sound that cut through the group as the appendage fell to the ground with a thump, a rain of blood and defeat.

"Stand back!" Inu-yasha ordered. Leaves whispered as the wind was pulled towards the blade, wrapping it in impossible patterns, drawing power from inside the wielder and the blade. From the corner of his eyes he could see a human suddenly stop, and then run away screaming at the sight he beheld.

Pathetic…

"Kaze No…**Kizu!**" A beast leaped from the sword, invisible to all who watched. Wind roared, the demon screamed as the beast drew its claws against all that opposed, leaving scars on earth and creature. There was an uproar of dust, blurring those on the battle scene, who began coughing as the slashed pieces of the demon fell down on them, and they cringed away from them.

"Well…that was rather easy." Miroku's voice came through the dust as it settled. Sango looked around with narrowed eyes, covering her face with her arm, poison mask already in place.

"A little too easy." She said.

Inu-yasha was getting slightly frantic. He could barely see, and his sense of smell was clogged by the dust, but he could feel something. Was it approaching? Wait…where was…

"Kagome!" He screamed, golden eyes landing on the girl, lying pitifully on the floor, Shippo rolling away as another, smaller demon towered over her, but it suddenly screamed in pain as it burst, the arrow piercing it, causing it's veins to roar with such intensity in it's purified state that the creature was torn apart.

He could hear them now, as the roaring of his blood subsided. He could smell them too.

There were a lot of them.

Kagome was on her feet now, Sango and Miroku by her side as Inu-yasha searched the positions of their attackers.

It seemed they had just killed the mother, who was the one carrying the Shinkon shard. The one who had attacked Kagome was obviously a pup.

But…where was the rest of them?

Where was the father?

"Hiraikotsu!" Sango shouted, and the boomerang cut through the trees beside the path they fought on. Revealing the hidden pack. The father skipped out of the way, and threw a battle cry in the air that shook the earth beneath them. Inu-yasha's eyes widened as the demon descended on Kagome, a cry of despair and warning ripped from his mouth as he threw himself at her in a last attempt to protect her, but the demon father had was too sudden, his appearance too quick, the trees hiding their secrets in the overcast shadows. Curiously, it was smaller than the female, probably due to the Shinkon shards, but that did not mean it was any less menacing.

With a speed they didn't know he would be able to muster, his lion paw slashed through the air, knocking all three group members, Miroku, Sango and Kagome, to the side.

Looked back on the moment, it seems so ironic. So…simple. Sango and Miroku barely retained any damage. It's not like this didn't happened every other fight with a strong demon.

But Kagome…was an entirely different story.

For a second, a simple, horrifying moment, it was as if all had gone quiet. The leaves stopped murmuring, the creatures stopped roaring, the earth stopped breathing. All they could hear was the blood chilling scream Kagome let out and then, with a tremendous, life changing, world destroying, heart tearing snap of a bone, the screamed stopped.

Completely abruptly.

She had hit her neck, or, just maybe, a bit below, on a fallen log that lay, rotting on the ground.

"Ka…Kagome…" A whisper. "N-no." A denial.

The world started once again.

"You fucking bastard! KAZE NO KIZU!"

The roar came, half from Inu-yasha, and half from all the creatures, forest, and animals dead because of his fury, now unleashed that he had a clean shot.

Silence, although not as absolute as before, fell once again.

"She's breathing…but…her neck…it's..." Miroku trailed off.

_No, no, no. This…this can't be._

"I'll take her to her time." Inu-yasha's voice was a whisper. Sango's cheeks were streaked with tears.

"If she doesn't come back…" She whispered. Shippo wailed louder, filling the terrible silence that would have fallen, clotting it with tangible pain instead of piercing nothingness.

Inu-yasha wanted to shout at her. _She will survive_, He wanted to say.

She'll get better. She'll come back.

She'll live.

But silence was all he could muster.

And with barely a goodbye, with fear in hearts, clogged throats and red eyes, he left them.

She would be ok.

_She had to be._

oOo

Sterile walls and sterile floors. A bleached white world where life and death where meddled with so carefully, it was almost like laughing at God.

Slit veins and metallic blood. Bitter sweat and calm-pulse hands.

**HOSPITAL**

The sign said, and the place almost felt like the border between worlds. People slipped away and were called back, gently or suddenly, it didn't quite matter.

Inu-yasha had never been in such a horrible place. He remembered once, with the spirit brat, when he had neared it, but it hadn't been like this.

_Nothing had ever been quite like this._

"What happened? What **happened**?" Was she shouting? Did she sound hysterical or pleading? Inu-yasha couldn't even bring himself to look at Kagome's mother, couldn't rip his eyes from the same miserable spot on the hard tiled floor, cold under his bare feet, that he hadn't covered, even though he had been asked to, nicely and not.

"I…"_I couldn't stop him. _"It…"_It was all my fault. _"He…"_He killed her!_

_Oh, Gods…_

"She got knocked back by a demon. He was too fast. I…" He swallowed hard, his monotone voice interrupted by a gripping in his heart, so deadly, he felt like it was going to make it stop.

"I couldn't stop the youki." Was that his voice? Barely a whisper, yet so void of emotion it almost sounded like Sesshoumaru's.

"Demons…" He heard her mumble, almost as if she were delirious. He almost lifted his head, but stopped himself just in time. He couldn't handle the SockPanicFearTerrorPainDread That clotted her eyes in tears that smelt like Kagome's, hurt stricken and heart-wrenching.

He had run to the well, in it and out, and suddenly alarmed Ms. Higurashi with his sudden presence. When she had seen the sigh he brought her,

_Her daughter, baby, **dead**,( her insides whispered) _

The fear had come alight in an instant, roaring suddenly, making her shake, her hands tremble with such ferocity that, if she had been carrying something, it would had fallen instantly to the floor. Inu-yasha dug his ears into his hair, not allowing time for anything else. Something had to be done.

They were the only four people in the silent waiting hall, the kind of silence that was filled with little noises (footsteps, trolley wheels scraping, murmuring voices, and another whole world detached from where they drowned) that meant nothing at all, did nothing to fill the growing (expanding, consuming, swallowing, devouring) void that curled around them, pressing like a snake.

Grandpa had said nothing at all, and that was worrying in itself. Out of all the people, Inu-yasha had expected him to blow up, for being a demon, for what he had done, for what was going on, but he hadn't. He simply sat, staring into space as if her were trying to keep the world at bay, refusing it to roll over him in a ferocious, undeserved truth.

Souta had been crying until a little while. The doctors had taken his sister away, and had come back with no further news. Now his hand lay in Inu-yasha's, slipped there to seek comfort for the one that he knew Kagome would miss the most.

_Because that kind of love is so different from any other._

Oh, she had to come back. To be ok, to make it. She always did, no matter what was thrown in her way.

Always? Always.

TapTapTapTapTap,

Something filled the silence, cuttingly sharp.

Four heads shot up.

"Kagome Higurashi?" The doctor had the habit of saying the patient's name instead of any other. If none knew their name, then they obviously weren't meant to know.

And the four of them were up, struggling against stiffness and drowsiness. It was what- three, four in the morning?

Years had passed. Centuries.

**Lives.**

"How… is she..is she…"

"How the fuck is she? _Where_ the fuck is she?" Inu-yasha cut through Kagome's mother, his agitation making him seem angry- his desperation spilling impatience.

The doctor didn't even blink. This was normal. Despair-pain, **bad news**, was all normal.

"Are you all family?" He asked. Inu-yasha could have ripped his throat out. The doctor had a little badge saying _don't kill the messenger_. It was insensitively funny.

They all looked at Inu-yasha. Was he family? If wishes were granted, then maybe more so than anyone else in the room.

"Yes. Doctor, please-"

"This is enough pleading! What are you standing there for, idiot? You're supposed to help us. Now take me to my grandchild, or god help me…" startled eyes on an old man. Grandpa Higurashi was trembling, his wrinkles deep with loss. He had buried a son, and didn't know if he could bare doing the same to his only granddaughter.

For a second, the doctor seemed ashamed.

"The patient is alive." A sigh, harmonized and sick with relief was let out my the four of them. Souta started crying again, along with Kagome's mother. Inu-yasha's cheeks were wet with rain and denial.

"But…" and the world stopped.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. _

Everything was hazy. Something was wrong.

Stable pain.

A double blink. Slow, drugged. There were people around her. She could hear sadness and couldn't feel her fingers.

Her lips parted, parched…she wasn't breathing and yet…

"Honey? Ho-oney…"

"Sister!"

She could see silver and red and gold, tanned skin and a lover's stature.

Her eyes were grey and dimmed.

She couldn't lift her head. She couldn't _move._

Darkness resurfaced.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. _

It was night time. The room was cast in shadow. There was only one person with her this time. Her grandfather was sitting in a chair, looking 400 years old.

"Gr…and…pa?" That wasn't her voice. It wasn't, it wasn't.

Fear bubbled inside her, overwhelming, sickening.

"Kagome! You're awake…how are you feeling?" He looked like he regretted the question.

"I'm…" She stared at him. How was she? He stared back, his eyes filled with tears.

_I'm Sorry. _

She could taste her own on her lips. She had always been good at grasping things.

"I'm…ok. At..least…you..won't…have…to…make..up…more..diseases…for…me." A broken smile, and her grandfather let out a watery laugh. Half-forced, half-desperate. Awful in how true it was.

_Oh, Kagome…_

She had been paralyzed from the neck down. She was unable to walk, run, fight, dance, wave, write, hug, make love, slap, play, dress, wash, hold…everything short of living. But not only that…oh no, she had to be connected to a oxygen supplying machine 24/7.

She couldn't even breathe. A tube attached to her neck to keep her eyes seeing and her lips talking. Heart beating and lungs working. But she couldn't move from that bed.

"Inu…yasha?" It took so much effort to talk. Her voice a rasping, breathless sound. Pain filled. If she could though, she would have screamed. Screamed and sobbed and oh, god… if she only brushed on the notion of all the things she couldn't do. All the things she would never be able to see, to do, to touch. Again or otherwise.

"He's gone to tell your…your friends about the…the situation."

The silence was filled with a heart monitor and a breathing machine.

She closed her eyes.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

It was nighttime again, but she knew a lot of time had passed. A day? A week? A year? She almost didn't care.

She looked around the room. It looked the same as the last time. White. Blank.

Her eyes were drawn to the darkened color sitting in the chair where her grandfather had been sitting.

"Inu..yasha?" Golden eyes met hers. She couldn't even begin to describe the sorrow she saw in them.

"Kagome…" He was crying, tears unhidden. It spelled out the severity, the point-of-no-return crossed, as clear as crystal for her.

He picked up her hand. She watched him, as if it were someone else's. She couldn't feel his touch. Her own fell limp in his large one. Broken. He slipped out of the chair, his knees on the floor. Misery drowned them both.

His head fell on her shoulder. She could feel his hair brushing against her face. She closed her eyes. Worlds crumbled and lives ended every day. It had happened to her before.

But not like this.

She could feel him shaking, nose pressed into her neck. She could feel it.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She thought, had been convinced she would never hear Inu-yasha sob. She had been wrong.

Who could have ever seen this coming?

"No..." She almost wailed. She would have wailed. Tears rolled, hot and heavy, fat with uselessness. She so desperately wanted to wrap him in her arms. She tried to, willed herself to move.

Nothing happened.

"Don't say..that. Don't. It's not..your fault. Inu-yasha…Don't..you dare. Please. Please..." They stayed there, helpless, hope banished from their hearts.

"I should have protected you!" He cried out suddenly, raising his head to look at her eyes, ringed in black, skin pale and sickly. The notion that this was how things were going to stay- that he couldn't save, or even help her, clenched at his insides and caused such desperation that Inu-yasha thought it was going to kill him. He wanted to roar in his misery, wanted to smash the world, rip it apart for a non-existent cure.

"No. No… I'm…_I'm_ sorry." She whispered. Inu-yasha's eyes went wide, narrowed, his mouth opened…

Drug-induced exhaustion pulled her under once again.

Weeks passed unchanged. Inu-yasha never seemed to leave. Her family visited constantly, but she pleaded with them not to give her so much time. They were with her every day, but Souta had to go to school, her mother had to work and take care of the house, her grandfather of the shop and shrine.

Inu-yasha, however, who had the most duties of all, seemed to be there even throughout the night- for they only allowed one visitor, and he insisted in keeping watch, as he didn't need the sleep nearly as much as humans. He left for a week- going in a long trip for shard, and returned with more, but the jewel was not complete. He would sometimes leave for a day, explaining to her that he had to help Sango, Miroku and Shippou. Kagome would not hold him back- the very opposite, she encourage him. And yet, the next day he would be there, claiming it had just been a rumour. She knew better though, reading it in his troubled stormed eyes. He couldn't bare to leave Kagome behind- caught in a crossfire of two duties. A double betrayal snapping his back.

Kagome did nothing but talk and listen and watch. She would sometimes read, but having to have someone flip the page for her she hated too much, and soon gave it up.

Instead, Inu-yasha read for her, entertaining her endless hours.

She wallowed secretly, thinking of little Shippou most of all. She had left him behind, when she had promised herself that she wouldn't.

Her school friends came to visit her at least once a week- not ceasing even with time. They talked quietly with Inu-yasha sometimes, seeing his haggard appearance, mourning eyes.

But what kept Kagome alive most of all were her conversations with Inu-yasha. Now, now that they had noting better to do, now that they had stared death and fear in the eye and been forsaken by them, they let their tongues loose about pasts and thoughts. Hours would pass, chatter livening the room up, along with the flowers, pictures and trinkets brought for her.

And yet they all watched as Kagome weathered away. She could see the burden she was, the lifeless routine she rode. She could not accept being taken care of for the rest of her life.

A new normalcy fell. Visiting days and hours were set, activities revised, and yet sadness was always clouding the scene like a quiet yet incessant background tune. They tried to ignore it as best as they could.

Fate, however, had not ended her torture. Tragedy struck once again a mere 3 months after the accident.

The room was eerily quite- the normal sounds now white noise for them. Inu-yasha started out the window, sunset light streaming into the room to bath them in bloody orange.

"Inu-yasha…" He turned at the pained call, worry lines on his face that hadn't been there a few weeks before.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner? Why didn't anybody tell me?" Inu-yasha looked at her, expression pained, lips in a grim line. He kneeled beside her bed, stroking her cheek in what he hoped was comfort.

He had taken to wearing shoes, loose jeans and a loose T-shirt, and his hair was caught back in a low pony-tail as he brushed Kagome's own back, which had been chopped short for practical reasons. Now the locks curled around her face in a bed disorder.

"I can't… take it. I can't…" Inu-yasha pressed his lips on her forehead, shushing her, comforting her, stroking her hair in a lulling rhythm until she quieted down enough to go to sleep, but inside, he was crying the same tears she was.

Her grandfather had died a week earlier, without her knowing. They had told her he was tired, resting, _fine. _There was nothing to worry about. Kagome had accepted it. Sadness in their faces was normal, she didn't question the tears in their eyes.

But the news had slipped from one of the new nurses who had heard, and offered condolences as she cleaned Kagome up. She had stared at her, denial boarding up common sense from her mind, but when she had confronted her family she had discovered it true. They had kept it from her for her own good. She already had enough worries.

What about them? She though. It was her fault grandpa was dead. He had been lively even in his old age, animated old bones, a comic figure. But her paralysis had hit him so hard…she knew it. The toll of the worry on his weak heart…she had killed him. The death had shocked everyone around them, as if it were unfair- for this continuous fire of putrid omens to befall on the family which had done nothing but try to help. And they could all see her blaming herself, looking down on her body and the cement round her feet. She just had to take the plunge now. She cried beside Inu-yasha. She wished the accident had never happened every day. Wished she had died, wished she had stayed away.

What if she hadn't fallen down the well? Was it worth it? No. She had felt love, felt fear, defeated evil, made friends, seen another time as if it were another world. Discovered that demons existed, and really…some of them weren't all that bad.

The moment she had woken up after the notice, she had decided; taken a stand against whatever was stringing her along in what had turned into a hellish ride. She would take no more.

She had had enough.

The next day rose sunny. A light atmosphere of singing birds and gentle breeze. It was noon, and Kagome's family still had a few hours left to visit. Inu-yasha, however, sat quietly in what was practically his chair, deep in thought, eyes cast downwards in an out of focus sort of way.

Kagome looked out the window, towards the day, world, life she was forbidden to enjoy. She could not step out of the room without hours of help, and attached to a practically immovable machine.

"Inu-yasha…" Kagome called softly, her voice rasping but better than it had been at the start. Yet it was still punctuated by the heavy sound of air sucking from the tube that protruded from the middle of her neck.

Inu-yasha looked up, scooting the chair closer to reach her easily.

"Yeah? Do you need something?" He asked. All gruffness in his voice had disappeared, all trace of made-up hostility, all barked comment or sarcastic reply banished. This was the real Inu-yasha, the bare Inu-yasha before her. She mourned and revelled in it at the same time.

"Yes." She said. Inu-yasha leaned closer, looking into her eyes, ears perked below the cap he wore. Kagome watched him, his changed face, open eyes. He looked older, lines on his face telling of how wary he was of the future. Out of everything that had happened to him, the beating and abuse when he was a child, the betrayal of Kiyo, the countless battles he had fought, and the numerous things he had seen, he had to say, admit, if only to himself, that this was, by far, worse than anything he could have imagined or foreseen. A waking nightmare. A living hell.

"What is it?" His hand trailed her face, combing her hair back.

She fell silent, the words clotting on her tongue. Could she ask this of him? Did she have another option?

No. In her mind, her thoughts, this was the only way out.

"Inu-yasha…I'm going to ask you…to do a very important thing for me." She whispered. Inu-yasha said nothing, simply watching, a sick feeling in is stomach. Her voice was so grave…final. He had no idea what could be so urgent.

"I need you…to pull the plug." She told him. Inu-yasha frowned in confusion.

"Pull the plug?" He questioned, doubtful. Tears strolled down Kagome's face, and Inu-yasha wiped them away, alarmed.

"I need you…to kill me." He froze.

Kagome's eyes bore into him. She couldn't have made the massage more clear.

He snatched his hand back, her face made of molten denial.

"W-what? No. Kagome…" He was trembling, his eyes looking away from her penetrating gaze.

"I can't…live like this. This isn't living. Can you imagine…how it is to run through the forest...one second, and then not be able to move…the next? I have no freedom. Inu-yasha, I can't tie you all down…like this. I can't. I've seen the downfall of Naraku. I've lived adventures I never thought…possible. But I've left…so many people behind…and I'm binding you here, my family…please. Please. Can't you see soon I won't…remember how it's like to live? To run. To swim. To…fight. Please…Inu-yasha." She supplicated. With this request, she broke her promise, broke him, herself.

Inu-yasha's eyes were framed in tears. He was shaking his head, trying to be rid of the one thing he could not do.

"No. K-Kagome…I can't. I can't…" His eyes turned away from her, trembling hands clenched, heart pounding and soul shrivelled. They stayed silent until Kagome's family and friends visited, when they livened enough to avoid questions, but the melancholy air could not be exiled. It darkened their hearts with the knowledge of what Kagome wanted. Their family knew, by instinct or smartness. They were not in as much denial as they young hanyou.

And as days passed, he could not get rid of the question. The plead. He could still imagine her eyes boring into him, his soul, his life, his memories. This wasn't the Kagome he remembered. This wasn't the girl full of life he loved. This was a woman asking for an escape, one she could not ask of anybody else.

They both knew, that she had fought in life, and had succeeded. And if she had to, she would fight her way out.

oOo

The days were just as beautiful 500 years in the past. The leaves rustled above them, shrouding them in a muttering shade as the gentle breeze stoked their waxy cuticles. For maybe the first time in his life, Inu-yasha had sought help. He had lost the battle, he was drowning in a situation he couldn't handle. To have the woman he loved ask him to kill her…what would anybody do? How could anybody make that decision? She had been beauty and life. Sun and spring and smiles. Good memories and tough love. And now she was shattered, broken, dying. He was afraid she had slipped away already. But how could he be fretting over such a thing when that's exactly what she wanted?

The sky felt like it was falling down a chunk at a time, and he had no idea how to keep it up. How did you re-build a world?

The silence was heavy and think. The humming of bees and the lazy breeze did nothing to blunt the aftermath of the deadened words Inu-yasha had supplied. Miroku's face was grim and trouble, his staff laying silently on the ground, providing no merry jingle.

"I've never…encountered a case similar Inu-yasha." He said finally. Unfortunately, he was almost at as much a loss as Inu-yasha. The mere thought of murder… It was against his belief.

Inu-yasha took a steadying breath. He had to take one step at a time now a days. One horror, one tragedy, one death.

"I just…I don't know what to do." He whispered, voice broken, a ghost of what it used to be. No strength behind his words, no conviction. No one who hadn't tried on these tight-fit shoes could ever imagine what he felt. The pure, unadulterated misery. The plain nightmare he was living. Each breath he took hurt as if stolen.

"It's like I'm being selfish…by keeping her here. She asked me to…kill her. To k-kill her!" Tears pooled in his yes, uncharacteristic. Rare, yet not precious at all.

Miroku looked at his friend as he buried his face in his hands, ears cast down, rejecting noise or comfort.

"I want her to be with me. To see her. To talk to her. To see her e-eyes, to smell her alive. But now she wants to die…she wants to d-die…" He stumbled over words, choking over shattered denial.

A bush rustled nearby and both the monk and the hanyou raised their heads in alert, tensing against the unseen only to be confronted by Sango as she stepped out of hiding. Tears played rivers on her cheeks, eyes rimmed in red and lips downcast with sadness. Her eyes almost squinted through the liquid slipping from them as she sobbed openly, hands clenched by her side.

Her and Inu-yasha locked looks, and the look on his face only made her heart hurt all the more. His expression was simply...haunting. A look that, if seen, you could never forget. A wretchedness so deep, the image would be stuck with his two companions, even if they lived to be 200.

Sango must have been the only person remotely close to them who knew a sliver of what he was going through. Indeed, she herself had been at the verge of killing her own brother. She herself wanted to keep him alive even if it meant not completing the jewel, or against his wishes. She knew all too well the conflict that raged inside Inu-yasha.

Silently, she walked over to Miroku, who only watched her plain-clothe clad body approached him. Grass crunched under her nimble feet, and then she sat down, and buried her head in Miroku's shoulder. He could feel her trembling. Shaking. Sobbing. He could taste the despair in his mouth. If it weren't for his exceptional self-control, and because he was determined in giving the woman he loved comfort, he would have shed tears right there.

A filled silence fell for a few minutes.

_How could this be happening?_

A story cut out to scare children away. A deadly tale.

"P-people should let other live in p-peace. And they sh-should let them d-die…in peace." She whispered, but they both heard her loud and clear. Inu-yasha stared at the swaying grass without actually perceiving the vibrant greenness pigmenting the sight. His claws dug deep into the moist earth in a semblance of control.

"But how can…how can I kill her? I want her to be happy. I want her to stay with me. I love her. I love her…" For all those present it seemed he was contradicting himself. If he loved her, if he wanted her to be happy…

"Maybe she simply thinks she is a burden…maybe she needs you to let her see that she is not." Miroku supplied. Sango looked at him with pained eyes.

"She has lived life. She has loved. She has fought for what she believed in, and she has won. But now she wants to die. D-doesn't she deserve that? Would you not be happy…would you not want to rest while you can still feel triumph, and not the defeat she has been crushed under?" Sango said, voice wavering but barely breaking. They held eyes, perceiving more of each other than they ever had. The melancholy air around them was suffocating. Revealing. Shredding and ripping.

Their eyes unlocked and slipped to Inu-yasha, but they only found up-turned soil and a broken soul on the floor.

Inu-yasha was gone.

The air tasted like decisions and pain.

oOo

It was night time. The hospice/hospital was still like a sleeping creature, subdued under the coat of darkness. Patients and family cried themselves to sleep.

Kagome's eyes opened, blinking before she could fathom what she was seeing. Gold. Her eyes adjusted slowly, gathering up all the light it could as the pupils dilated.

"Inu-yasha?" She rasped in a question. Window curtains rippled with movement, betraying the way he had entered. He stepped forward, the little light that streamed from the gaps in the shutters revealing him, his drawn face, tense body. He was holding a little bottle in his hands.

"…Ok." He said simply, and yet Kagome didn't have to ask, or say anything else. The moment stumbled and shuddered, stretching, melancholic. A tight smile pulled at her lips. She could see that he had made his decision the second she saw the broken, determined expression conquering his face.

"Thank you." She whispered. The heart monitor kept beeping, the air machine sucking air in a cycle.

He approached her slowly, kneeling beside her as her eyes followed his form with shimmering acceptance.

He had been preparing himself all day, torturing himself with thought. He had gone to Kaede, and asked her to prepare a painless poison. She gave him something she called The Sleeper.

They stared at each other. Knowing. There were so many things they had wanted to do, that they had needed more courage for. So many things they wanted to say. Years of satisfaction owed to them. An old death dream shattered. No wrinkles, no bucketful of loving memories stored in their possession.

He leaned down and kissed her on her cracked lips, a chaste pressure that said too much. She could feel him trembling as she returned his love.

He raised his head enough for him to look in her eyes. For the first time in a long time, they were bright blue. They hadn't changed colour, they hadn't lit up. They had filled, jolted back to life. He could understand others saying how important eyes are in expression, in revealing secrets now. He could see the gratitude in the smiling wrinkles on her skin, that had been replaced for sadness for so long. For too long.

"I would have waited." She whispered, her breath brushing him. He almost broke down by thinking that these were her last breaths. That in a moment, she wouldn't be able to speak, to laugh, to open her eyes and look at him like she was doing at that moment.

"I would have waited forever." She went on. And she would of. It's normal to love, to learn, to move on. But they had gone through too much together. Year-worth in only months. Lives had been saved, death had been seen, betrayals woven. How could she ever let go someone she had fought for, and beside, for so long? How could she move unto someone else when she knew he loved her back?

He lowered his head so that his lips brushed her ear. His breath hitched. His words broke. Foreign tears slipped into her pillow like secrets.

"I would have never been able to leave you alone." He replied. He had known it true ever since the day she told him she would stay with him, even if it broke her heart.

A small, lacquered container was pulled out, opened with difficulty due to racing hearts and dieing seconds.

The top slid off, clattering on the floor, the sound magnified by the silence. But they paid no heed to such insignificance.

"I'm sorry." She breathed. _For Everything. _Inu-yasha looked at her with hot eyes.

"Don't." He ordered. Tears slipped down his cheeks, dripping off, suicidal. Kagome didn't stop.

"Please…I beg of you…be happy. It's all…I've ever wanted. Please. Please try…Please. Live." How selfish of her, to ask him to live, when she was asking to die. Tears intensified as the moment chocked, heavy in despair.

Inu-yasha pressed his lips on hers once again, Kagome accepting greedily. They tasted like salt and goodbye.

As they parted, Inu-yasha left her with one more thing. With gratitude beyond anything and everything.

"Thank you." He supplied. "For understanding. For being…you." Sobs echoed with hand-in-hand partners.

With a trembling hand, Inu-yasha raised the nozzle to Kagome's lips as she nodded. The liquid that slipped into her was blood red, and tasted like nothing but death. They eyes locked, still spilling, still speaking, still revealing.

"I'll never forget you."

And with a steady beep, she was gone. Her family never saw the boy with dog-ears again, but they knew. They accepted. They mourned for both of them.

500 years in the past, where a magnificent girl with blue eyes, black hair, and a penchant for smiling hadn't even been born, people filed to bow and pray at her make-shift grave.

But no matter how much a person is loved, no matter if you want to wait 500 hundred years to change death and time...her grave still read

_Never Forgotten. _

Never had there been a truer thing.

OoOoOo

A/N

Disclaimer: I own nothing which is not mine.

Had this idea in my head a loooong time. Must have been...a year now, i think. No, more...Well, in any case, I was inspired by an essay I had to do on euthanasia, and then M.D.B informed me on the technicalities. This piece really did come out like I wanted it to, and I've put a lot of work into this (Ask Deadly Crimson) so you better have something to say!


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